Hi im wondering what does the top tier pro snipers use as their dpi and hz? i like playing anything from 450-900 but i cant seem to settle for one setting. is it true the best thing would be to set sensitivity at 1 and scale up dpi for a comfortable sensitivity? i want to be a consistant player!.

Yeah, I think it's best that you just play around with your mouse. If you have those with DPI buttons (switch on the fly). Then just set a few close to one another and use them until you like one. If you can't decide... then just pick the middle one and stick with it. If you hate it, then change it. Otherwise, you'll just naturally adjust to it.

Basically you should do the opposite of what you described - set DPI as high as it will go, and adjust sensitivity down to where it's comfortable.

It's complicated and I don't fully understand it, but think of DPI like accuracy. A high DPI will more accurately interpret the movement you make with your mouse than a low DPI, even if the sens is adjusted such that the mouse moves at the same speed for both.

Does that make sense? In reality it's probably not going to make a big difference unless you are playing with really high resolution. 450 DPI is really really low, though, low enough that it actually could be (and probably is) negatively impacting you.

I'd suggest setting DPI as high as you can and then adjusting sensitivity down (keep windows sens in the middle, though). If you can't adjust it down far enough with the high DPI, then move the DPI down some... But ideally keep the DPI as high as possible. Once you get above ~2000 dpi or so it really won't matter, but you definitely want more than 450.

As for what sensitivity pros use, it depends on the game and style of play, and even then it can vary widely. However, in a game where very precise control is required (CS, sniper or scout in TF2, etc), most players use low sens. For example, I played CS at a near-pro level and I used a ~16inch 180.... On the other hand, if you're playing soldier in TF2 where a lot of quick turning around and looking in all directions is required and long-range accuracy is less important, some players use something as high as a 2-inch 360. It's mainly personal preference and it varies widely, but you will see trends.

Since you're asking about "snipers", in general most of them are probably using fairly low sens (though I'm not sure what game you're talking about...). Any time extremely precise aim is called for, lower sens will generally be more conducive. Of course there are always exceptions and you'll find pros who use high sens too.Edited by pelirrojo - 10/31/11 at 2:11pm

Basically you should do the opposite of what you described - set DPI as high as it will go, and adjust sensitivity down to where it's comfortable.

It's complicated and I don't fully understand it, but think of DPI like accuracy. A high DPI will more accurately interpret the movement you make with your mouse than a low DPI, even if the sens is adjusted such that the mouse moves at the same speed for both.

Does that make sense? In reality it's probably not going to make a big difference unless you are playing with really high resolution. 450 DPI is really really low, though, low enough that it actually could be (and probably is) negatively impacting you.

I'd suggest setting DPI as high as you can and then adjusting sensitivity down (keep windows sens in the middle, though). If you can't adjust it down far enough with the high DPI, then move the DPI down some... But ideally keep the DPI as high as possible. Once you get above ~2000 dpi or so it really won't matter, but you definitely want more than 450.

As for what sensitivity pros use, it depends on the game and style of play, and even then it can vary widely. However, in a game where very precise control is required (CS, sniper or scout in TF2, etc), most players use low sens. For example, I played CS at a near-pro level and I used a ~16inch 180.... On the other hand, if you're playing soldier in TF2 where a lot of quick turning around and looking in all directions is required and long-range accuracy is less important, some players use something as high as a 2-inch 360. It's mainly personal preference and it varies widely, but you will see trends.

Since you're asking about "snipers", in general most of them use fairly low sens. Of course there are always exceptions and you'll find pros who use high sens too.

thanks for all the info... but if i set my dpi to max and lowered ingame... it would still make my scope very sensitive so i dont know if thats the best solution. someone told me if i go below 1 sensitivity it "interpolates" the sensitivity somehow

thanks for all the info... but if i set my dpi to max and lowered ingame... it would still make my scope very sensitive so i dont know if thats the best solution. someone told me if i go below 1 sensitivity it "interpolates" the sensitivity somehow

What game are we talking about here? If it's a source game I haven't heard about what that random guy is talking about, but it's certainly possible. I'd suggest just putting your in-game sens as low as you can (1 if you want to believe that guy, lower if not), and then putting DPI as high as it can go. Adjust DPI down from there until mouse speed is at a comfortable level.Edited by pelirrojo - 10/31/11 at 2:25pm

What game are we talking about here? If it's a source game I haven't heard about what that random guy is talking about, but it's certainly possible. I'd suggest just putting your in-game sens as low as you can (1 if you want to believe that guy, lower if not), and then putting DPI as high as it can go. Adjust DPI down from there until mouse speed is at a comfortable level.

i play mostly cod 4 and css. oh and another thing that just came up into my head about maxing dpi... wouldnt it cause acceleration with some mice?

As for what sensitivity pros use, it depends on the game and style of play, and even then it can vary widely. However, in a game where very precise control is required (CS, sniper or scout in TF2, etc), most players use low sens. For example, I played CS at a near-pro level and I used a ~16inch 180.... On the other hand, if you're playing soldier in TF2 where a lot of quick turning around and looking in all directions is required and long-range accuracy is less important, some players use something as high as a 2-inch 360. It's mainly personal preference and it varies widely, but you will see trends.

Actually most professional players in CS/Quake use 400/450/800/900/1800 DPI. Sensitivity on the other hand is what you're most comfortable with.

Also no reason to set your DPI as high as possible.

DPI correlates to your screen resolution. So say you're playing on a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 but you're using 1600DPI, its going to very sensitive.

People these days play at higher resolution though these days. Which means the mice needs to be able to distinguish more pixels. So say your mice only has 100, now the resolution that people run these days have more than 100 pixels in a inch. Because of this you would need to raise your DPI that way you're able to accurately track every pixel.

Certain mice have a "optimal DPI" and "optimal polling rate" though like the Deathadder. Running the deathadder with 1800dpi and 1000hz. This is with the older deathadder though that was capped at 1800dpi.

New gaming mice tend to be released with high DPI counts, but how much DPI is really needed to play games? Higher DPI obviously seems better. Like the steering wheel in a car you want continuous and smooth control over turning. The difference is that game graphics is made up of pixels, rather than the real world which has much more detail. At some point, having more DPI becomes unnecessary because the actual bottleneck is the screen. But how much DPI is enough?

I will use the example of playing an FPS game. If you are playing on a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels, then we can roughly work out the number of pixels in a full horizontal rotation of 360 degrees. We multiply the number of pixels across the screen by 4 (since each screen is about 90 degrees viewing angle).

Pixels in 360 degrees = 1024 * 4 = 4096

Now we need to work out how far we want to move the mouse for a full rotation of 360 degrees. This distance changes depending on the gamer, because changing the game sensitivity changes how far you need to move the mouse for the same effect. By dividing the total number of pixels by the total distance (in inches), we get a rough idea of how much DPI is useful.

High Sens: 360 degrees in 0.1 m (4"), roughly 1000 DPI needed

Medium Sens: 360 degrees in 0.25 m (10"), roughly 400 DPI needed

Low Sens: 360 degrees in 0.50 m (20"), roughly 200 DPI needed

While 3D games don't need you to turn a whole pixel before the screen changes, this is a sensible way to work out when more DPI resolution stops being useful. What we find is that standard 400 DPI mice are ok if you have a low sensitivity, but there are times when more DPI can improve the game. If you have a High Sens and a huge 2560 x 1600 panel to play on, our formula says that our ideal mouse resolution is a whopping 2500 DPI!